In using our framework to examine emotion regulation choice,
our working assumption was that in many cases, regulatory
choices of healthy individuals would be sensitive to costs and
benefits associated with each regulatory option in a particular
context. If this assumption is correct, certain emotional, cognitive,
and motivational contextual factors should bias regulatory choices
in ways that are congruent with the differential consequences of
implementing these strategies under these various conditions (see
Part I below for elaboration). Furthermore, according to our conceptual
account, adaptive emotion regulation choice should involve
an ability to operate deliberate executive control processes
that can override the direct influence of fast associative emotional
processes. This assumption is congruent with the finding that
healthy adaptation requires the ability to restrain affective impulses
(e.g., Muraven & Baumeister, 2000). In addition, our account
holds that a key determinant of emotion regulation choice is
each strategy’s underlying mechanism. Specifically, when considering
distraction, individuals mainly evaluate their preference to
perform early regulatory disengagement from emotional processing
via selective attention, and when considering reappraisal, individuals
mainly evaluate their preference to perform engagement
with emotional processing prior to a late semantic meaning regulatory
modulation (see Part II below for elaboration).